Entertainment

Non-Profits Can Now Run Their Own Exclusive Group Buying Deals

Everybody loves group buying, right? A Deal for a Cause expects non-profits to jump on the trend with an emphasis on fundraising and loyalty to causes.

Where Groupon, Livingsocial and other group buying giants act as destination sites with a plethora of deals, A Deal for a Cause is more like a group buying infrastructure.

Huh? Basically, a non-profit signs up with the company which then goes through its donor base's demographic and geographic profile. They then match up the cause with a merchant offering goods tailored to the non-profit's specific users. The non-profit can then send out that deal to their donor mailing list and watch the money come in.

Most impressive, non-profits can sign up free and A Deal for a Cause says it gives 50% of the gross revenue back to the charity. This is an improvement over the comparably low rates of group buying destination sites.

It sounds like a win for everyone: A Deal for a Cause gets access to the huge donor mailing lists of participating non-profits. Merchants get an uptick in sales and get to say they're giving back to charity. Non-profits, most importantly, get to raise a little money while offering their loyal users a unique and exclusive perk like discounted meals or products.

The big question is if this model — sending out deals via non-profit mailing lists — is actually a good one. People already suffer from charity fatigue and a deluge of emails asking them for things. These deals could just be one more thing to be deleted or a welcome break and personal thank-you for supporting a cause.

It's a smart move by A Deal for a Cause to not try competing head-to-head with Groupon. By going directly for non-profit mailing lists it has opened up a new audience while offering better percentages to participating causes.

In case any non-profit is wondering how to manage an entire back-end, A Deal for a Cause is powered by DreamingCode's Group Buying eCommerce Platform, the same cloud-based platform behind Glen Beck's new deal site, MarkDown.com.

The site can take the rigors of high traffic and is willing to do some good. The question is whether people will care to follow.

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